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Anxiety wrote this article. The culmination of stress, worry and doubt has always been difficult to encapsulate and express. The feeling is often too melancholy. I refuse to give in and remember writing remains the strongest outlet for the feelings and thoughts buried inside me. Today’s movement for mental health encourages me to share my experience. Anxiety is a normal response; humans naturally feel worried and doubt when faced with uncertainty. The modern age, however, brings new pressures, an overabundance of expectations, interactions and information that are all too difficult to restrain. I describe my experience, conversing through the first anxious responses to the deeper-seated anxiety found in social interactions. I then explore some means to managing anxiety. A paradoxical truth remains, more exposure to uncomfortable situations forms the primary means to overcoming fears and doubts. One may still desire an immediate prognosis which Action Commitment Learning offers through brief practical steps. The battle with anxiety may not be about eliminating such feelings entirely but managing how it affects us.

1) How anxiety affects me- why anxiety is more than just stress…

Anxiety develops in many different forms although many uncomfortable feelings can arise from just a single thought. A reminder that I finally have my driving test in two weeks. “Nothing to really lose sleep over, there is plenty of time and it is not like the day’s stressing at school…”. I hopelessly find myself descending into a battle. The latching reminder pulls me into a stream of images, moments and emotions- I’m I really ready for this? What if I get a strict examiner? If I do not pass, how bad will my failure be? Can I cope under the situational pressure? How will the weather affect the test? The anxious mind means monomania. While some quickly detach themselves from the worry chain, others like me squirm without resolve. Up until the very moment has finally passed. All joy before then is marred by the looming, doom scenario. As I head to bed, the same worry feelings swiftly emerge. “If someone was to know I was being kept awake by this, how embarrassing would that be?!” I glace over to my calendar, all upcoming events feel pointless compared to what is yet to come. Even that glorious chocolate cake on the kitchen table tasted sickening. A night of tossing and turning, I awake feeling oddly alert by all the worry. The beleaguered moment finally arrives. I feel some joy thinking when this is all finally over. I soon forget as I am whirled into the present moment; I glare into the examiner’s eye, sweating frantically, my lips parsed like a drained oasis. My drained mind freezes, all I can muster are the simplest responses, blurted out like an overwhelmed child in a shopping mall. “Why did I choose to put myself through this! I’m I some sadistic freak?” Once over, I flee as far as I can, unrelenting to the final result and any other person. I sit in my humble abode clutching to movies, TV shows and gaming, hoping to silence the dread in a new worldly presence.

b. Social anxiety:

Anxiety can be more than just a spur moment, for some, it is a state of living. From a young age, the worry chain can shape a life controlled by fear. Every interaction, each choice taken, led by an absolute reluctance to engage with the wider world. One avoidance after the other, you eventually realise how little of life you have lived. This was not because of principle but social anxiety- a fear to enter new interactions, events and possibilities. The natural course has always been to avoid danger and secure comfort in conversing through familiar territory, even if it means denying ourselves to new opportunities enjoyed by many others. The greatest comfort may have been found in our house, an enclosure to shut off the world and binge on the virtual world while leaving our unshaped lives in auto-pilot mode. This life course may seem innocent. Reality inevitably serves a blowback. When life forces us to complete the simplest of tasks or responsibilities, we find ourselves irked and taken over by anxiety. No longer can we excuse ourselves for being introverts when social anxiety looms larger over even the simplest of living and enjoyment. An event as simple as heading to the supermarket or eating in a restaurant can feel too overwhelming. The mind quickly turns to worry over who we may meet, how we will look and talk to others and if ever we can avoid the world’s myriad troubles and fears. Not too long ago did I only muster enough courage to walk into a coffee shop and order my first coffee. Nor was it an easy journey to finally enter the workspace without feeling terrified about meeting new people and taking on new responsibilities.

c. Anxiety and Imposter Syndrome:

You may think academic or work success would bring relief to social anxiety yet we find continuing worries and fears about others and future events in imposter syndrome. For the already anxious individual, success brings a greater ominous wait for failure, a time spent worry about you’re your successes will ‘finally’ be ‘exposed’ and left to ruins. I went through this whole experience throughout my time at school. With every praiseworthy grade and feedback, more pressure grew to prove to myself and to others I was not a fraud. The crowd waited to see my magic. I continuously feared my abilities and achievements meant nothing. Beneath this iceberg of success, I hid many ugly moments, struggles filled with despair, frustration and trial.

“A line [of poetry] may take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not appear a moment’s thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught” (Adam’s Curse, William Butler Yeats, 1865–1939 cited in Greene, Robert. The 48 Laws Of Power, page.338)

2) Discovering a ‘cure’ for our anxious state- Spiritualism:

Before discussing a route to manage anxiety, it is important to highlight worries and fears which are deep-seated do not simply disappear when we choose to ‘treat’ ourselves. The saying that money does not buy you happiness ties to a deeper point regarding materialism that joy will not just be temporary but also impossible to feel when the indulgence holds no real sentiment. On many occasions throughout life, the ‘reward’ felt as empty as if I never had it. I discovered worry and lacking self-belief just returns as found with success; the precarious state leading into the reward sapping all worthiness in enjoyment after. The new lavish object in a few weeks or months simply becomes part of the ordinary and the need for another hit of dopamine and escape soon returns. The hedonistic cycle reminds us that no amount of material good will defeat the world’s uncertainty and our primordial anxious feelings. Our mental and social anxiety needs revealing not hiding as the search for acceptance becomes key.

I suggest the first treatment to an anxious heart is found in the discovery of a spiritual return. Humans are more than just animals, we are spiritual beings, however, empty you may feel. Through life’s twists and turns, our perspective comes back to trying to find meaning and purpose from our temporary existence. By following the modern world’s submission to materialism and pure rationality, people discard the millenniums of human existence that has depended on religion. Now in the secular world, many celebrate the freedoms gained from escaping religion, later seeing a world that continuously shape-shifts and holds no contentment. Some dwindle into nihilism, their goal towards negating meaning becoming a life’s purpose. In both scenarios, life can appear pointless, a godless world where death offers no end and life’s enjoyments appearing fruitless. As Carl Jung profoundly remarked seeing the trend of spiritual emptiness:

“We think we can congratulate ourselves on having already reached such a pinnacle of clarity, imagining that we have left all these phantasmal gods far behind. But what we have left behind are only verbal spectres, not the psychic facts that were responsible for the birth of the gods. We are still as much possessed today by autonomous psychic contents as if they were Olympians. Today they are called phobias, obsessions, and so forth; in a word, neurotic symptoms. The gods have become diseases.” (Alchemical Studies, Collected Works, Vol. 13)

In an increasingly materialistic world, we must acknowledge the individual is not merely a physical body but a spiritual being, yearning for meaning and purpose. Those who submit themselves to the world’s hedonism, drugs, money and pleasure all in abundance, eventually return to their natural senses and disappointingly find there is nothing more to live. Thinking far into the future, a wavering journey filled with precarious twists and turns, many quickly return to living out all pleasures, a craving for ‘escape’ as far as possible. Others, anxious and fearful of reality’s upturn, sink into despair and ponder upon an empty world- those rapacious in consumption, destruction and violence; senseless freaks hypnotised by their devices; politics by kakistocracy and mistrust; an overwhelming rich with no compassion. As I soon discovered, anxiety from the two extremes requires spiritual balance. The material world will never satisfy and only threatens to breed more competition and greed for the temporary things in life, money, status and superficial luxury.

Equally, one must acknowledge this world still lays beyond human control. From the immense human progress in sciences, it is easy to conflate our sense of agency; people have achieved great levels of knowledge and power so should we be able to attain those levels through our actions. This ostensible belief in determining life’s course brings great anxiety. With an expectation to get what we want, scenarios steeped in uncertainty bring out the real fears of the unknown, trepidation over the many things we must achieve and how criminally we can make them go wrong. There is a great relief to be found in returning to Stoic principles. Our times sometimes forget that life is constrained not just by social structures but also by contingency. In a full Stoic mindset, events beyond our best actions are ultimately posited within the cosmos of fortune. You may influence others but rarely dictate and never determine what will happen far into the future. The aim is not to become a victim, dwelling on life and society, nor grappling with every squirmish. The relief from anxious feelings is to know you are continuously perfecting your character first, simultaneously projecting positive action, speech and letter elsewhere. As with the forces of the universe, whatever happens, happens, the next course of action must be considered with life’s many blessings. Hence, finding a spiritual return can be a helpful first step to managing uncertainty and anxiousness; stoicism provides a means to explore faith, reinforcing our unfettered hearts amongst acceptance, love, charity and progress.

3) Managing anxiety- learning to grow with anxiety:

Tackling the anxious heart still requires some topical treatment, direct action that confronts our fears and paves way for resilience. Dr Matt Lewis in his practical approach to anxiety, Overcoming Anxiety: A Self-Help Toolkit for Anxiety Relief and Panic Attacks, expresses the issue of Escape Avoidance Learning- by finding relief in running away from fears, we inadvertently develop a cycle of abstinence (2017:46). Your friends may ask you to play basketball, suddenly anxiety hits you, your mind cast back to the time you tripped over and received rounds of laughter. Just the thought of playing team sports now provoke unpleasant feelings, perhaps a racing heart and gradual fatigue. The natural response is to avoid playing, unbeknownst to your friends making you more pleased. Unfortunately, as the cycle demonstrates, quitting from anxious feelings that have no real threat creates a negative reinforcement. The big sigh of relief from escaping makes it more likely you will do the same when the ‘troubling’ scenario faces you again. It is important to stress this is not to say anxious fears do not matter at all, the point remains that long-term mental growth requires confronting anxious triggers than avoiding them entirely. Through gradual exposure, we can all grow bolder and stronger to our levels.

Since the 1980s, Exposure Therapy has been the most popular method for tackling anxiety. Falling under the umbrella of cognitive behavioural therapy, exposure therapy focuses on stopping negative thoughts in the present moment. Events like failing an exam or losing a job may understandably spiral into a web of negativity, fear and worry. The bleak outlook sometimes stretches as far as making present life feel meaningless. Exposure therapy as the name suggests carefully exposes sufferers to their anxiety triggers and scenarios. The aim is to gradually build tolerance towards usually avoided or feared situations through learning new coping strategies, helping to rewire negative thought patterns (Haug et al., 2000:116). The trend of using exposure-based therapy for treating problems with anxiety and fear is backed by a vast research literature that indicates effective results (S. Abramowitz, Deacon and Whiteside, 2011:18).

A common practice for gradual exposure is by creating a fear hierarchy– a list of activities related to the feared stimulus, i.e., speaking, writing, meeting strangers, cleaning, eating, and ranking them to how strongly they generate a fear response (Abrahmovitz et al., 2000; Barlow, 2002 cited in Raggi et al., 2018: Chapter 5). By taking part in these exposure tasks, therapists seek habituation in their clients. The more exposure and thought management, the weaker the physiological fear responses become to the feared stimulus (ibid, Chapter 1). Tackling anxiety, however, remains unique to every sufferer and makes finding the successful therapy solution a real puzzle. As Abramowitz, Deacon and Whiteside (2018:21) highlight, physicians take a heuristic approach to anxiety treatment as there remains little way of knowing which single method will be effective enough for the unique sufferer. Exposure therapy also depends on sessional therapy, suitable for those diagnosed with anxiety disorder but difficult for the ordinary anxious person who wants immediate relief in their daily life. As from my experience, anxiety can feel more than just a broken thought pattern. The feelings of worry, unworthiness and lethargy stick more deeply at a point that is hard to express and explain and administer exposure therapy. The pivotal question becomes, how do I escape those anxious psychological to physiological feelings?

Dr Matt Lewis outlines Action Commitment Learning (ACL) as the practical solution to managing amygdala/reactive-based anxiety. Commonly proposed cortex-based anxiety treatments threaten to lead some into focusing on thought patterns too much and creates a perverse effect in complicating present situations (Lewis, 2012:37). Attempts to explain and alter your thought pattern to ‘something more positive’, while your amygdala is triggered, struggles to settle physical emotions during anxious situations. Many return to avoiding the situation altogether or fall back into overwhelming anxiety after a more ‘positive’ previous week, day, hour or minute. Obstacles in life will always be present, often subtle and unexpected, at other times large and expected. Knowing how to deal with them in the immediate term can be as useful, and sometimes better, than working on long-term thought change.

Matt offers four practical steps to dealing with anxiety. Without giving the book away, each step is designed to be small-scale, easy and immediately effective. Firstly, the practice of defusion; similar to Stoic practice, this step focuses on quickly accepting the situation as part of the vast uncontrollable universe. Your inner, surviving conscious remains separate from the world’s sudden events and the flowing stream of negative assumptions. To the contrary of your amygdala, this is not a life-or-death situation. You must diffuse from the moment, breathing and accepting each anxious moment brings an opportunity to discover, learn and grow (ibid, p.85,87). Secondly, the practice of expansion: dealing directly with the physical symptoms of anxiety through letting the emotions unfold within you. Similar to defusion, the aim is to deal with your feelings rather than ignore them. The butterflies in your stomach, your panting heart and your sinking feeling can be carefully expanded to avoid a mental crash. Through breathing techniques and a quiet meditative state, the anxious feelings can be released internally. The anxious feelings eventually settle against the brewing chaos in your triggered mind, creating room to harness greater mental clarity and strength. The third step transitions quickly into engaging with the present, not allowing new worries to fester by projecting your attention towards the very moment before you. The focus is to discover your relationship with the present. What can you feel, see, smell and hear? Where are you sat? Who is with you? These are just some of the surface level questions to question and answer without ongoing deep thought. Recognising yourself in the surroundings helps you to remain in the present and paves the means to embrace than reject what you are doing or supposed to be doing. Finally, the lesson of action: to allow discomfort as a natural side-effect of learning. For the vast majority, anxiety is normal and can quickly be overcome. Mental and physical hurdles to activities like teaching, exams, stage-fright, travelling and playing sports will always depend on the action you can take. That action can be big or small, the worst is to lay siege to the anxiety that makes us human. A cycle of mindfulness, practice, experience and reflection paves the way for continued action and improvement that is truly personal to us. The world does not need to be seen as one large rat race when we know we have secured action to our best efforts. In summary, Action Commitment Learning offered by Dr Matt Lewis has provided people like me a practical tool to settle anxious feelings before chaos and secure an avenue to completing what lays before me.

**If your struggle with anxiety feels too overwhelming, do not be afraid to seek help! Anxiety and depression can be debilitating. Opening a discussion about mental health with family, friends, your doctor or a therapist will help you find a voice against the silent battle. This world will always have enough kindness, compassion and love to give you the courage and peace to embrace life again.

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